I will soon be posting my board and code for the main TOS E board that controls the blinking running lights (saucer), the strobes on the rear sides of the secondary hull, and the warp engine motor speed controller - all in one! Just need to get the prototypes back from the PCB house and do a video or two.

I can't wait to see what you came up with!

Thanks again for sharing your work with all of us.

Thanks Gadgetry_3000! The truth is, I owe this all to you and your posts.

As promised, here is a preview of my custom motor control circuit board that lets you set the motor speed and direction (in case you wire up one or both motors so that they do not spin in the direction you want, or you want them to spin in the same direction instead of the usual opposite). In addition, the Arduino Pro Mini code includes the blinking saucer/running lights and secondary hull strobes, and also provides the +5V power for the nacelle circuit boards.

As promised, here is a preview of my custom motor control circuit board that lets you set the motor speed and direction (in case you wire up one or both motors so that they do not spin in the direction you want, or you want them to spin in the same direction instead of the usual opposite). In addition, the Arduino Pro Mini code includes the blinking saucer/running lights and secondary hull strobes, and also provides the +5V power for the nacelle circuit boards.

As promised, here is a preview of my custom motor control circuit board that lets you set the motor speed and direction (in case you wire up one or both motors so that they do not spin in the direction you want, or you want them to spin in the same direction instead of the usual opposite). In addition, the Arduino Pro Mini code includes the blinking saucer/running lights and secondary hull strobes, and also provides the +5V power for the nacelle circuit boards.

That is a good question. The reason I cannot program a nominal speed is because this is a DIY project for modelers to put together themselves, with their own motors. Also, to make the speed control as simple as possible the Arduino code is always reading from a trim pot and converts the 0-5V analog reading to a PWM value between 0-255. So, no nominal speed; modelers would have to run it next to a clip from their show to get what they want.

[As an aside, this is the 3rd attempt at responding to Mark s post; turns out this site cannot handle contractions, or more specifically single quotes - all text disappears after a quote on save]

[Second aside - I accidentally edited Mark s post; how am I able to modify another person s post?]

I finally had some time to finish soldering up one of these, and I am THRILLED with the results!! I can't thank you enough Ross for sharing this project with us! Here are a couple quick videos I shot....

I finally had some time to finish soldering up one of these, and I am THRILLED with the results!! I can't thank you enough Ross for sharing this project with us! Here are a couple quick videos I shot....

For anyone even thinking of doing this....I say go for it! I had never soldered any SMD components before doing this project....if I can do it, anyone can!

-Rich

Couldn't have done any better myself - great work, Rich! Glad you like the effect. If you feel adventurous, you can adjust the blink rates and brightness of the blinking lights in the Arduino code but it doesn't look like it's needed from those videos.

I really appreciate you reporting your progress and doing those videos!

I finally had some time to finish soldering up one of these, and I am THRILLED with the results!! I can't thank you enough Ross for sharing this project with us! Here are a couple quick videos I shot....

I finally had some time to finish soldering up one of these, and I am THRILLED with the results!! I can't thank you enough Ross for sharing this project with us! Here are a couple quick videos I shot....

Go to the first post in this thread - this is a DIY project in that I provide the code, parts list and board design - you order the PCBs, program the Arduino Pro Mini and solder everything up yourself. you can see that Rich was able to put it all together.